The Savannah tribune. [volume] (Savannah [Ga.]) 1876-1960, 1887-07-23
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

NIouguL IRON requires stronger heat
formetting than any other known metal,
being 2, 1886 degrees.
A professorship in sanitary engineer
ing the only chair of the kind in any
college has been established in the I'm
pefial Institute, at Toxic, by the Govern
ment Of Japan.
inequality in the pupils Of the eyes has
been taken as a symptom of illness, but
IN "a healthy persons Russian physi-
clan has found only twelve with right and
lett pupils of equal size.
A moist hand can be passed through
molten iron without burning, film of
steam being evolved that prevents con
tact with the metal. In like manner gun
cotton can be burned on the hand and
ne heat felt, the moisture absorbing the
heat as fast as it is evolved.
q la ancient times the Egyptians wove
Ia an upright loom, and beginning at top
30 as to weave downwards, sat at their
work. In Palestine the weaver had an
upright loom, but beginning at the bot
tom and working upwards, was obliged
to stand. During the medieval period in
Europe the loom was horizontal.
Many artificial favoring extracts are
used in foods and drinks, such as amylic
valerianate, amylic butyrate, propylic
ether, and caprylic alcohol, which imi-
tate the odor and flavor of the apple, the
pear. the pineapple, the strawberry and
the raspberry. Their substances have
been tested by the French chemists, who
find them poisonous in considerable guam
titles, but harmless in the usual small
doses.
[ A firm Of Birmingham music dealers
was lately required to tune an organ to
accord with piano in Moseiey. 1t was
impracticable to bring the instruments
together but a happy plan was at length
stumbled upon. A note of the piano was
struck in front of telephone, and the
sound was so accurately transmitted to
the distant tuner that he was soon able
to accomplish his task, and the organ
was sent in season for its intended use
with the piano in a concert.
It is said, on the authority of can
American railway engineer, that low
temperatures do not decrease the strength
of rails, as is commonly supposed, al
though it is true that accidents are more
likely to occur from broken rails in cold
weather This is because when the
ground is frozen hard, it loses its elias
ITCHY. Nevertheless something must
yield when the train runs over the road
it is the ground that yields in unfrozen
weather, but during a freeze the ground
will not yield, and the rail, as being the
weakest part of the structure, has to
suffer the consequences.
After a heavy shower in Washington
recently the cutters and low places were
covered with q deposit of fine yellow
powder. Prof. Ward prounced it vege-
table pollen, which came from the pine
trees of the district. 1t was very light,
and was carried into the upper regions
and washed out by the rain. Prof. Ward
said: 1T is the male element of the pine
trees, which annually she'd their pollen at
this season. 1t consists of minute grains,
like little spores, and to the naked eye
looks like yellow dust but subjected to
the microscope, the grains have different
shapes, which differ with the varieties of
pine. 1t is common wherever pine trees
exist
The two satellites of Mars are pro-
nounced by Prof. Comb by far the small
est heavenly bodies yet known Their
diameters cannot be stated with any de-
gree of accuracy, but that of the outer
satellite may be as small as five miles,
while that of the inner satellite probably
lies between ten and forty miles. Ceres
and Vesta, the largest of the Asteroids,
are supposed to be between 300 and 400
miles in diameter, while others of the
group may be as small as twenty miles,
or even less There are some reasons for
!. bNlieying, indeed, that the ring of aster-
ODDS may include bodies of unlimited
minuteness- fragments far too small to
bevisible with our largest telescopes.